High School football playoff travel horror stories

Truth about the West Texas travel. I've made four 400-mile plus trips this season already. But then again, as a kid from a big city, I can understand why these trips can be painful if you're not used to them.

 

I have vague memories of some suburban Fort Worth team -- maybe Southlake Carroll? -- flying to its playoff game out in West Texas.

 

I'm not 100 percent positive but I think that one of the richie rich private schools in Chattanooga flew to a game in Memphis.

Don't think they chartered either, just had the parents pool their G5s for the trip.

 

How about the kids at Avalon High School on Santa Catalina Island, where every roadie starts with a 26-mile ferry ride? One local football coach would schedule them occasionally and make sure to leave the day before the game, just to cut down on the seasick factor.

 

Same thing for the Nantucket High Whalers back here.

 

I figured most teams flew Sandpiper to get there.

 

It's all about what you are used to, but flat lands don't hurt either. I grew up in Central Kansas, some might consider it Western Kansas. 100-mile drives are like going around the corner. If that's where you have to go to find the part you need for your tractor, shop at the Gap or play a football game you zip down the highway and don't think much about it.

A trip of the same distance feels a lot different when you start factoring in windy roads, traffic, mountains, etc. The kind of stuff you get outside of flyover country.

 

Could say the same and then some about Natchez, which plays in the same region with Wayne County (right on the Alabama border for those not familiar with Mississippi geography), Laurel and Pearl River Central, which is located a lot closer to New Orleans than just about any place in Mississippi. I can imagine the headache it is for PRC to travel to Natchez. I guess they would hit I-59 to Hattiesburg, take 98 west to McComb, then jog up I-55 to 84 west and on to Natchez. Only good thing about that trip is that it's now mostly 4-laned. But still...

 

From my part of the state, it's just as quick to go over to Baton Rouge and go up to Natchez as it is to cut across the state through Hattiesburg, which is just weird when you think about it.

 

I always remember thinking it funny that in Louisiana, for a New Orleans or Baton Rouge team to travel to West Monroe or Ruston the quickest route involved driving three hours through Mississippi.

 

True about Natchez. That whole region is full of geographic orphans, though. You have a cluster of teams on the Coast, another around Jackson, and a third in the northern third of the state. And then you have all these other scattered teams that don't fit anywhere else. It's the Island of Misfit Toys, high school football edition.
Hell, even when they were in Class 6A, Natchez was usually lumped in with the Hattiesburg schools, Meridian (on the complete opposite side of the state, probably close to 200 miles away) and whatever Jackson-area schools were left over. They're just in a terrible place for the size of the school.

 

At the college level, Sul Ross University in Alpine, Texas and Mississippi College in Clinton, Miss. were in the same Division III conference for several years. That's an 888 mile trip one way.

And DIII schools don't fly.